46 



THE GEJTESEE FARMER. 



NOTES ON THE DECEMBER AND JANUARY NUMBERS 

 OF THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Fattening Stock on Potatoes. — Will the refuse 

 of potatoes fatten stock, after haviug their starch 

 removed by distillation, or any other process? 

 There is proof enough that one object of carbon- 

 aceous substances (oil or fat, starch, gum and sugar,) 

 in our diet, is the supply of fat. " The Esquimaux 

 fattens on his diet of blubber and train-oil; the 

 slaves on the sugar plantations grow fat in the 

 boiling season, when they live heartily on sugar ; 

 the Chinese grow fat on an exclusively rice diet, — 

 and rice is chiefly starch." It is said that an able- 

 bodied, laboring Irishman, whose diet consists 

 wholly of potatoes, requires fourteen lbs. each day, 

 ten and a half lbs. of which is water, leaving but 

 three and a half lbs. of solid matter, including the 

 starch. Remove the starch, and is the balance left 

 worth more for feeding and fattening purposes for 

 being destitute of starch? The idea is not only 

 " ridiculous," but supremely so. 

 . Cotswold Sheep. — I do not know but "sheep 

 consume food in pro'portion to their live tceight.'''' 

 But I do know that the live weight of a man has 

 nothing to do with the quantity of food he con- 

 sumes. I have had in my employ many a lean, 

 Cassius-looking chap, weighing from five to six 

 score pounds, that would stow away twice as much 

 food, for weeks together, as a plump, juicy one 

 would, weighing ten score pounds, or over. 



Advantages of Pulverizing the Soil. — This 

 is a subject that is every year becoming better 

 understood among farmers. But as you have set 

 forth all the advantages accruing from thorough 

 working of the soil, nothing further need be said 

 upon the question Just now; but it is one that will 

 bear "line upon line." 



Flint well says: "Keep your cows in good 

 condition, should be the motto of every farmer, 

 posted up over the barn-door, and over the stalls, 

 and over the milk-room." Would it not be a good 

 plan to have these placards "struck otf" in large 

 letters, for the farmers to post up as above 

 suggested ? 



Tying up Cattle, and Soiling Cows. — Two 

 paragraphs in close juxtaposition. Tamworth and 

 Mr. QuiNCY tell quite different stories about keeping 

 cattle in the barn. 



Lime as a Manure. — A farmer in Chester Co., 

 Penn., says he " finds lime the cheapest manure he 

 can purchase. He pays ten cents a bushel for it 

 and draws it thirteen miles." How long can the 

 fertility of a farm be kept up on lime alone? 



Sheep Killed and Wounded by Dogs, in Ohio. 

 Two lines in the Farmer tell us that the number of 

 sheep killed and wounded by dogs, in Ohio, in 1858, 

 amounted to 96,977. Dun't the farmers out there 

 know the virtues of strychnine, in lessening the 

 number of dogs ? 



Plaster for Timothy. — Plaster is generally 

 considered more useful for broad-leaved plants, like 

 clover, peas, beans, etc., than for the narrow-leaved 

 ones, like timothy. If Mr. Shaw will apply at the 

 rate of two bushels of plaster per acre, to his high 

 and dry land, now stocked with timothy, it may 

 increase the yield. But if it does not, it will soon, 

 on his soil, bring in the clover, amply repaying the 

 eost of the plaster and the sowing of it. • 



Wheat Midge. — This scourge of the wheat- 

 growers usually wriggles itself out of the wheat 

 before it is harvested ; seeks shelter near the roots 

 of the stalk, and, burying itself to a slight depth 

 beneath the surface of the soil, lies duruiant until 

 spring. After undergoing certain changes in the 

 latter part of June and into July (dei)ending some- 

 what upon the season and latitude), it assumes the 

 winged state. Probably no amount of freezing 

 will destroy their vitality. Provision has been 

 made to perpetuate the midge, as well as tliousands 

 of other insects that survive the extreme cold of 

 our winters, while in the chrysalis, or pupa state. 



Nature and Talue of Peat and Muck. — But 

 little need be said to the readers of tiie Farmer 

 upon the valuable contribution on peat anJ muck, 

 by Prof. Johnson. It speaks for itself, and in 

 language, too, that we common farmers can under- 

 stand; and to be benetitted by its teachings, we 

 must go into this muck and manure business with 

 a right good will. But, as every farmer has not 

 muck upon his premises, the decaying leaves and 

 leaf-mold from his wood-lot, or saw dust, or even 

 the spent tan from the tannery, will answer as 

 substitutes. Dry saw- dust and tan both make cap- 

 ital bedding for cattle and horses, and ultimately 

 good manure. 



Beans and Indian Corn for Milch Cows. — A 

 mixture of corn and bean-meal for milch cows, 

 when fed together as practiced by R. H. Brown, 

 is unquestionably better than eitlier fed singly or 

 alone. There are chemical and physiological rea- 

 sons for this. King Philip corn, analyzed by Dr. 

 Jackson, contained four per cent, of oil, and sixty- 

 three per cent, of starch, and only about seven per 

 cent, of gluten, casein and albumen. Tlie starch 

 and oil, in animal economy, are used for the pur- 

 poses of respiration, keeping up the tempt rature of 

 the body, and for the^produetion of fat; the gluten, 

 etc., containing nitrogen, go to make muscle, milk, 

 etc. Tlie carbonaceous — the heat and fat producing 

 elements of Indian corn — greatly exceeds those of 

 the flesh and milk forming elements ; while in beans, 

 the order is completely reversed ; that is, a given 

 weight of beans contams three times the quantity 

 of strength-giving, muscle-forming, and milk-pro- 

 ducing elements, that the same weight of corn does; 

 but the bean lacks in '• available carbonaceous 

 matter," so that, when fed alone, there is a loss of 

 the nitrogenous portion of it. Fed as practiced by 

 Mr. Brown, we have a much more perfect or 

 equalized food ; that which will produce animal 

 heat, fat and cream — milk, rich in both cream, 

 casein, and in inorganic matters. With three quarts 

 daily, each, of corn and bean-meal, and good hay, 

 plenty of pure water, warm hovels, well littered, | 

 and a free use of the currycomb and brush, the 

 farmer has a right to expect a good flow of milk, 

 and No. 1 calves. 



Rolling Snow on Wheat Fields. — The corres- 

 pondent of the Toronto Globe, who advocates this 

 practice, under certain conditions, is right. If the 

 snow comes, as is sometimes the case, before the 

 ground freezes, and succeeding shows follow so as 

 to prevent the after-freezing of the ground, winter 

 wheat and rye, under such a condition, are liable 

 to winter-kill, or rather, to smother. The plants 

 under the snow, when the ground is unfrozen, are 

 in a growing condition, and use up all the oxygen 



